Furniture which can collapse temporarily and/or placed in a stack help facilitate the manner in which such furniture is placed in storage or transported from one location to another. This advantage is particularly important to furniture manufacturers who strive to maximize the amount of furniture that can be positioned in a given cargo space during shipment to retail stores. A typical example of furniture which can be collapsed or placed in a stack during storage or transportation is the stackable chair. With the ability to be stacked into a vertical fashion, stackable chairs require less storage space than non-stackable chairs, and thus increase the number of chairs that can be shipped in a given vehicle at any one time.
Some chairs allow for some form of lateral adjustment of the seat or legs in order to change the size of the chair. With such a feature, the chair can become more portable during shipping. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,759,572 to Koepke discloses a sling seat frame comprising a plurality of elongated tubular connection elements and two frame segments forming the seat. During assembly, the tubular connection elements are placed in sliding engagement with the first frame segment. The second frame segment is connected to the tubular connection elements by means of threaded tips on the second frame segment and corresponding threaded nuts mounted within the connection elements. To shorten or widen the width of the sling seat, a user must rotate the elongated tubular connection elements in order to dispose the threaded tips further within or without the threaded nuts. However, the user must individually rotate all the connection elements and guess whether the connection elements are placed in matching configurations to provide equal dimensions throughout the sling seat. Prior to assembly, the Koepke seat, in a fully detached state, can be shipped in a space saving mode. However, with separate components, there is the potential of misplacing parts that could render the sling seat unusable.
Other efforts have been made to provide a chair with lateral adjustment means to adapt it into a portable arrangement. For example, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2008/0084104 to VanHorn discloses a portable, laterally-extendable bench seat. The seat bottom and seat back each comprise telescopically interconnected components for converting the seat into a bench. However, VanHorn does not provide for comfortable seating due to the uneven surfaces of the seat bottom and seat back. Furthermore, the chair disclosed in VanHorn cannot be placed in a stack with other chairs of the same design.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2008/0105173 to Weber describes a pupil desk having two lateral C leg frames that can be disposed either beneath the edges of the desk top or outside the edges of the desk top. In order to switch the pupil desk between the two configurations, a person must laterally pull out or push in the legs in a transverse direction. When the desk is configured with its leg frames disposed outside the desk top, the desk can be placed into a vertical stack. However, Weber requires spacers disposed on the leg frames in order to maintain a vertical alignment and prevent the stack of pupil desks from leaning forward in an unsafe manner.
It is therefore desired to provide a stackable chair with a telescopic leg mechanism which, when placed in a stack, requires minimal space, particularly in the vertical direction, during storage or transportation. It is also desired to provide a stackable chair with telescopic leg mechanism that is easily and safely loaded onto an existing stack of chairs using a forward motion.